What Web Publishers Aren’t Getting Readers
I suspect that they aren’t the kind of people who read often, and that’s why they’re inclined to misjudge what a good writing site requires.
Through the years, I’ve watch writing site after writing site begin, reach dizzy heights, and then fade into oblivion. Over and over again, the same story of a few writers becoming wildly successful initially, even though some of them aren’t particularly good writers. They earn good money. Then more writers earn, and then marketers and SEO gurus start advocating the site as a way for business to earn money, and then the site starts losing money, and then the writers start getting paid less, and then the site goes out of business.
Why is it so impossible to have a successful writing site for writers?
I think there are a number of reasons, and I’m going to list them here.
Definition of a writer
There is little understanding as to what a writer is and isn’t. I think it was twenty years ago that Julia Cameron wrote a book entitle The Artist’s Way. What a load of poppycock. In it, she advocated that the only thing that made you a writer was your desire to write. To apply that to any other profession (and writing is a profession), it would go like this. In order to be a doctor, all you have to do is desire to be a doctor, and then you are a doctor. Or if you wanted to be a ballet dancer, all you needed to do is want to be a ballet dancer, and then you are a ballet dancer. The fact that certain talents, certain skills, a certain education level, etc. are just as much a requirement for a writer is omitted by Cameron. The consequence of this is that all writing sites are inundated with people who have very little ability to write, and as readers are quite an educated and fussy lot, the only people who then go to these writing sites are other writers. That doesn’t make a writing site very profitable. Readers are a vital component of any writing site.
I would suggest that all writing sites have grammar tests, spelling tests, and some sort of general knowledge test before they are accepted. A writer needs an excellent general knowlege, otherwise they hav nothing to write about.
Writers and marketers are two very different things.
The goal of a marketer is to sell something — be it a writing course, a feel-good book, or a product for a client. When they begin to overwhelm a site, readers disappear. Readers tend not to be dumb fucks. They know when the point of a post is to sell something. They might be taken in the first few times, but soon they disappear. Readers are not interested in being marketed to.
This was such a problem for Google in 2011 that it created an algorithm called Panda. Panda killed every single content writing site other there (there were a few exceptions, but they had to change rapidly to survive). It killed the affiliate marketing game, and it is no accident that Medium has not been keen on letting its writers sell goods through affiliate marketing. Google tends to downgrade sites that have a lot of affiliate links on them. Even Amazon has just changed its policy. According to new Amazon guidelines, anyone posting an affiliate link must now have two very loud notices in big print explaining that they will earn a commission on goods sold.
Why was it a problem for Google? Google is paid by advertisers. If advertisers cannot get clicks because “writers” are doing a better job of selling goods, then Google would go out of business. The web was also becoming a shitty place to go to because the first two dozen links were always marketers selling one thing or another.
Advertising is rapidly losing its clout, essentially because there is no much of it that people have become immune to it. So marketers are now looking for other ways to sell goods on behalf of their clients. They have come up with the idea that people will read content, and, therefore, to garner sales, one must write content and sell via the content.
Well, yes. Only it eventually kills the writing site, because readers are not stupid. They do not want to read the sales spiel that marketers keep inflicting on them.
If writing sites want to survive, they need to make sure that marketers are not permitted to drive traffic to their own sites. Hubpages has been exceptionally efficient at this. Nobody is allowed to self-promotion links, and affiliate links are seldom allowed. That said, I think Hubpages is a dying site as a result of bad management.
Writers do need to earn in some way
The best way for a writing site to prosper is to have an exceptional stable of writers. The only way to obtain an exceptional stable of writers is to enable them to earn for their writing.
Writers earn money in a number of ways:
- Selling books
- Commissions on articles
- Donations through Patreon or Ko-fi
- Subscriptions
There is no reason whatsoever that a writing site cannot be set up so that writers can upload their ebooks, have the site automatically convert them to e.pub, and then for readers to download them upon payment. As the current payment model means that ebook writers only get 33% on any book under $3.00, a writing site that enables writers to have 80% for all books will benefit tremendously. They’ll get 20% of every book sold, and it wouldn’t take long for authors to flock to writing sites. With them would come the readers.
I like the model that Medium is currently using when it comes to paying only for readership It prevents gaming the system (unless some person writes code to overcome it). Only paying for reads keeps the system fair. The problem with this model, though, is that these pieces would need to be behind a paywall, and I don’t believe that a paywall is the best option.
Every site should provide links to Ko-fi, Patreon, and other donation sites. This would educate readers to donate to their writers. It also saves the writer from having to ask.
While most publishers seem to fear writers having access to their own readers, for fear the writers would take their readership elsewhere, it’s a false concern. If the writing site is driving traffic to the writer, the writer won’t leave. The reason that writers get so upset about not having access to their own readers is that when the writing site fails, the writer loses access to his or her loyal readership. Again, the writer will be allowed to charge a certain amount — say $2.50 per month for a subscription, and the writing site takes 20%.
Publishers should not put up a paywall
Medium has a high bounce rate. This is because when Google sends it traffic, most of it bounces because readers cannot read the article, particularly if they have already read their three articles for the month.
The publisher may think this will encourage the reader to pay to read. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m an ardent reader. If a news site doesn’t let me in, I just find another news site!
The publisher needs to make money through taking a percentage of the writer’s income, i.e. book sales, subscription sales, and other means. The one difficulty with this model is where the publisher gets the money to pay for reads. I’m wary of advertising, but perhaps a limited number of relevant advertising might be the way around this.
Evergreen and the daily news — two different models
Blog sites and news sites tend to put emphasis on constant new stories. Content writing sites that depend on advertising focus on articles that are evergreen. In other words, “How to fix a phobia” might always have a good few thousand readers every month for many years, but “Man dives into empty swimming pool (that really happened)” would only be current for a day or two.
When writers write, they will need to differentiate which category their article falls into. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. An everygreen article might never take off, or it might takes years to reach the top of the SERPS, while a news like article will get instant readership and then fade. The advantage of an evergreen article is that if it reaches the top of the SERPs, it makes money for many years.
Writers will need to select only one, otherwise the temptation for abuse takes over. Temptation to drive up readership by gaming the system is always there. Therefore there needs to be inbuilt blocks that prevent it.
What a good writing site will do is rank daily content by date but evergreen content by topic.
Author’s profile page
Authors and writers need a profile page. A small bio is not sufficient. Space on the web is cheap. There is no reason not to provide this for writers.
Writers want readers!
Readers will not come to a writing site unless there is good reading material. The problem is that writing sites, in their anxiety to get as many writers on board as possible, allow those who are more likely to chase readership away than draw them. No reader likes to read badly written work. I know that I don’t.
I’m not sure why so many writing sites dont’ do this. To me, it’s the obvious solution, and it will live on for a long time. There is no reason why established authors wouldn’t flock to it for the chance to sell their books.
So there you have it — this is what publishers don’t get about writers. What do you think?
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